


carry on

by asiren (meliorismo)



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Domestic, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 10:11:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14494668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliorismo/pseuds/asiren
Summary: After a while, Andrew thought, looking at his daughter's face, it becomes really hard to pretend that you don’t care.





	carry on

**Author's Note:**

> i have a lot of feelings

Neil had show up with the form during autumn, white paper with the letters all in black. There were thousands of spaces waiting to be filled, plus all the ones that Neil had already written on. They hadn’t thought about children. Andrew always thought that they didn’t want one.

Except that they did, apparently. Neil came with ammunition and arguments, all the reasons that this was a good idea, a _nice_ one, even, and not the shitshow that it would probably be, if they were thinking things through. Andrew really tried to shoot him down. He wasn’t parent material, and neither was Neil. A child isn’t a goldfish and they were pro athletes. Kevin would have a heart attack and lecture them forever about making their own life harder than it had to be. It was hard enough to have two cats.

He didn’t say, _Sometimes zero parents are better than a bad one,_ like every other person would say on this situation; he couldn’t, because it was a lie, and Andrew wasn’t that desperate that he would give up on this fundamental character trait.

 _I can be a terrible person,_ he thought, _but at least I’m not a liar._

They were married for six years, knew each other for eleven. They became the annoying kind of couple that finish the other’s sentences, who did everything together: living, playing exy, going to therapy, visiting friends — all the major things.

Andrew was mad during that day, walking loudly around the house. He felt betrayed. How could Neil, he thought, dare to try to drag him into this situation — this fucking _trap_ — where he would be, suddenly, responsible for every single thing that happened to someone else; that, if they turned out miserable and traumatized, like he did, then it would be _his_ fault (and Neil’s) — they would have to _shoulder_ this pain for the rest of their lives.

Wasn’t their own enough?

They fought about it during three whole months, only stopping to eat or play exy or fuck (sleep was very low on Neil’s list of priorities). When the winter came, though, Andrew signed the white paper with a black pen. He was the defeated side, something that he sealed with his name. Andrew J. Minyard.

He would be a parent, and so would Neil.

What a terrifying thought.

 

Her name was Eliza and she was three and a half. She moved around the house like she didn't really know what the brand new setting of parents were trying to do, but like she was willing to pretend that she did. It was a foster child mentality, something that would constantly break Nicky’s heart; it would hurt Neil, too, when he couldn’t say what kind of food she liked, because she would keep this information close to her heart as if worried that, if they knew, then they would surely withdraw it.

Her mother didn't want her. Andrew could relate.

Eliza was his daughter for a little more than two months when she first talked to him. She was very loud with Neil, following him around the house and pulling his hair (which was getting long) like there was no tomorrow. She was his daughter, from head to toe, open hearted and uncomfortable with new people. The only small thing was that she would rather wear the 3, Andrew’s number, and not the 10 (Neil’s) when she went watch them play — holding someone else’s hand and waving a sign showing GO TEAM! that she couldn’t have written herself, but that she probably knew what meant anyway. The handwriting was Neil’s. Andrew would recognize it anywhere.

Her first word to him was a polite _Hello,_ spoken at the gate of the orphanage from where they were pulling her. The director, who was crying at a napkin, pushed her forward, as if saying _well now, young miss, get going._

Andrew remembered that sensation, and it wasn’t pleasant. The unknown was worse than whatever shit they were doing to him. He got angry, then, and held Eliza’s hand himself, staring a little murderous at this woman who dared to make his daughter unwelcome. They didn’t understand that she were now to be treated like a princess; Andrew had the money and Neil had the charism, and she would never be alone again.

After that, she didn’t say anything else. Her silence extended to Neil, too, during the beginning; she was wary and confused, staying all day hiding on her new bedroom, laying on her new pink bed, holding her new stuffed toy (a fox, very old. Both eyes were missing, which was a good idea since she was very small and could end up eating it and then dying. That deathtrap used to be Aaron’s, because of course it was).

The first meaningful word Eliza said to Andrew was _father_. He spent the last week in the hospital because of a nasty contusion, and she wasn’t allowed to visit him, since the nurse thought small children always made a lot of noise. It was true enough, but Andrew still tried to talk back. He was offended that anyone would think that Eliza wasn’t a good daughter. The best one.

He left Neil to deal with the bigger bag with laundry and the smaller one with medicine. He had to be under observation at home during at least another two weeks. Andrew hated it, even if it _was_ a good reason to skip exy. He opened the door, trying to remember where he left his wallet (since the babysitter surely had to go home, and needed to be paid more because they were very late), muttering under his breath about injuries and unreasonable captains; he had to stop, though, when a small body collided with his leg, a cloud of black hair and green dress. She looked like a faerie, which meant that Stacy, the babysitter, ignored Neil when he told her that she couldn’t dress Eliza like a doll anymore. Dan was worried that it would be bad for her, growing up with only Disney princesses and silver tiaras as hobby. Andrew agreed with her. He didn’t want his daughter to be anything but the best at what she _wanted_ to be, whatever it were.

“Father”, she said, looking at him and smiling. “You’re home!”

He didn’t know what to say, which was why he ended up with “Looks like it, uh?”

Neil sighed, long suffering, loud enough to be heard even if he was still fussing with the stuff on the car. Eliza, though, didn’t look unhappy or even surprised; she was still bouncing with agitation, like she couldn’t exactly say what she was feeling but was willing to try anyway. It was then, and only then, that Andrew realized that he was her father. That she acknowledged that, and wanted him close, and got worried when he disappeared. He had been her parent all along, but he thought that it was as far as it went.

“I’m sorry”, he told her, this small human that couldn’t understand how big it was, to Andrew, that she was alive, “I won’t leave anymore.”

“Do you promise? Father, can you promise?”

 _No,_ he thought, because exy was a dangerous game, and the Moriyamas were worse. “Yes. Yeah, I promise.”

Neil rested his cheek against Andrew’s shirt, reaching out to mess with Eliza’s hair, because he knew that she hated that and would try to yell at him. _She has your personality,_ Neil said once, and at the time he wished that he was wrong. Eliza was better off with Neil’s, or with anyone else’s. At that moment, though, when she just shook her head, her hair floating like a halo, unwilling to let go of Andrew’s leg — she called him _father,_ the word easy like the _dad_ that she used to talk about Neil (how long was that going on?) —, like she was still scared of his absence, he thought that it wouldn’t be so bad. If she could grow up to be strong, and resilient, like her parents, then it would be enough. He wanted her to survive. He wanted her to be happy.

Andrew would be a liar, and would say kind things that he didn’t meant, if that was the price he had to pay to raise her. He would give up on honesty and selfishness and recklessness and wouldn’t complain once.

He was her father. He never loved anything more than that.


End file.
